


Two Plus Three Is Four

by AlmondRose



Series: Sharing Scars [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Asexual character(s), F/F, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, finially finished!, i hope you people like this, longest boy yeah ever, tbh, this isn't a 1 am posting but it's midnight and that's close enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 07:49:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9538520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlmondRose/pseuds/AlmondRose
Summary: You share marks with your soulmate. If you draw on your hand, your soulmate gets the same drawing. If you get scarred, so does your soulmate. And if you die, your soulmate feels it, too.Stephanie Brown has finally met all three of her soulmates. This seems to be working well.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is the sequel to Four is An Odd Number---If you haven't read that yet, I'd recommend you read that, first. Link to that one is here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8845450

Stephanie Brown is thirteen years old, and she stares at her ceiling at one in the morning. She traces her hand over the Wonder Woman symbol on her wrist absently and tries to think. 

 

She’s thinking about her soulmate, and how she sees those two guys at school kiss and hold hands and it’s kind of gross. Not the two guys thing, but the kissing thing. She’d like to hold hands, maybe give her soulmate a quick kiss, but not like….making out or whatever. 

 

She frowns and remembers that making out and kissing is supposed to be normal. She thinks, briefly, of sex. 

 

Sounds gross, she thinks, and she realizes that somehow she’s gotten out a pen and is tracing a familiar symbol on her arm. She lifts her arm to her face, and she can see the outline of a bat drawn there. 

 

Steph marches to her window peeks out. The Batsignal is glaring in the sky. Steph throws her purple pen out the window. 

  
  
  


The next morning, she goes back and picks it up from the alley where it’s landed. 

  
  


\------

 

Cassie Sandsmark is twelve years old and she likes the way Wonder Woman moves and the way the boys in her class look at her, sometimes, or the way they run and wrestle each other. 

 

She likes the muscle in Wonder Woman’s arms and the shape of the boys’ arms and how their voices are starting to lower.

 

She lays in the grass outside her school and she stares at the blue, blue sky, and she thinks that she doesn’t mind whichever gender her soulmate is. 

 

Cassie lifts her arm to her face and there’s drawings and her diamond tattoo and her Wonder Woman symbol. She drops her arm back on her chest and closes her eyes. 

  
  


\-----

 

Kara is thirteen years old and she’s bullied for not having a soulmate. She glares at the girls who do the bullying and she wishes they weren’t so pretty. She kicks at the boys who do the bullying and she hopes they’ll leave her alone. 

 

Krypton is going to blow up, according to her dad. All the jerks who bullied her will die, probably. 

 

(Kara hates them, but she doesn’t want them to die.)

 

She sits in her room and holds her baby cousin, clutching him tight to her chest. 

 

“Kal,” she says. “Kal, you ‘n me are gonna escape.” He makes a gurgling noise. “Yup. We’re gonna leave this planet. And on the other one, on Earth?  _ That’s  _ where my soulmate will be.” 

 

Kal’s tiny fist reaches for her hair and pulls.

 

“It’s true,” Kara says. “You’ll see.”

 

He sneezes in response. 

  
  


\----

 

Damian al Ghul is eight years old and he has bats all over his arms that he didn’t draw. He denies looking at them, but he does, sometimes. They’re purple and glittery and he uses his amazing detective skills to deduce that it’s a girl. 

 

But he doesn’t really need a soulmate, he thinks. If he didn’t think she(?) lived in Gotham, he’d probably never seek her out. 

 

He’s not sure he even wants to seek her out, anyway. By the time he (finally) goes to Gotham, she might be gone. 

 

She’s definitely older than he is, since Mother says he started getting drawings from around age one, and either she was a prodigy or older, and Damian’s seen her art. She’s not a prodigy.

 

(Unlike him.)

 

\-----

 

Steph is fourteen years old, and Robin tried to kiss her. She pushed him away, and he said was was for practice, and she scoffed. 

 

“ _ What if we fall in love?”  _ she’d said, omitting that she thinks kissing is probably gross.  

 

_ “We won’t. Well--I won’t,”  _ he’d said in return, then she’d gotten offended, and he rushed to explain his  _ exact  _ sexuality. And also gender identity.  

 

(Bisexual (but almost gay) and also genderfluid (he/him pronouns are fine.).)

 

And Steph--well, Steph has no idea what the names are for any of the sexualities, so she’s at the library, looking it up. 

 

And wow, there’s a lot. 

 

\-----

 

Cassie is fifteen years old, and she and Supergirl are soulmates, and they have a third, and Cassie wonders if the third is a boy. The handwriting doesn’t look it, but who knows? 

 

She’s liked boys, and she’s liked girls, and she doesn’t know about Kara’s preferences, but if they’re  destined to be, then she supposes Kara will like whoever it is. 

 

Either way, Kara likes to trace the notes from their third, their third who probably lives in Gotham, who Kara laughs about being a Bat. 

 

Cassie nods and thinks about Trinities, about the rumors about Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman that she knows are false. 

She spreads out on her bed in Titan’s Tower, leaving no space for anyone else. She wishes her bed was bigger and that Kara was here, that their Bat was here. She lays on her side and curls up, ignoring Bart’s calls for her to wake up. 

  
  


\------

 

Kara is sixteen years old, and she clutches Cassie’s hand, and together they glare up at Batman. 

 

“Our soulmate is  _ here,”  _ Kara says. “What is going on?” She glares at him as best she can, free hand on her hip. The fear quivering under the surface threatens to break free, and she’s almost worried that she’ll heat vision Batman in the face, but she doesn’t. 

 

“None of your concern,” Batman says, his voice controlled. “I’ll contact you when this all blows over.”

 

“Batman--” Cassie starts, but Kara has none of that. She grabs Cassie’s free hand, pulls up the sleeve. 

 

“ _ Look,”  _ she says, almost screaming. She thrusts Cassie’s arm under his nose, right where it says  _ Sorry  _ in bloody letters. “Look!” Kara pulls back her own sleeve to reveal the matching letters--and scars. 

 

“Neither of us can scar,” she says, a little hysterically. “We got these a few days ago.  _ What is happening.”  _ Batman examines their arms, slowly and carefully. Kara’s tempted to punch him in the face and just fly in. 

 

“Shit,” he mutters. 

 

“What?” Kara and Cassie ask at the same time, their voices ringed with panic. 

 

“I know who this is,” he says, putting his thumb over a purple bat on Kara’s arm. 

 

“You do?” Cassie says, excited, while Kara’s mind tries to catch up. 

 

“Already?” Kara says. She hadn’t thought Batman was  _ that  _ good of a detective. “W-where is she?”

 

“Or he?” Cassie interjects, bless her bi little heart. 

 

“Below us,” Batman says. Kara can’t help but look down at the roof. 

 

“We’re on top of a hospital,” she notes faintly. 

 

“Yes,” Batman says. “I was with her when you showed up.”

 

“In...Batman gear?” Cassie asks, confused. 

 

“Yes,” he says simply, his voice tight. “I can tell her you’re here.” His voice sounds--off. 

 

“Would you?” Cassie asks, and he nods. Batman leads them down to the hospital proper. He leaves them outside a door, goes inside. The door closes behind him. 

 

Kara falls over, crippled by pain that isn’t hers, before Batman can come out. 

  
  


\------

 

Damian is ten years old, and he has never wanted to meet his soulmate. He always knew they were there, and that was enough for him. The idea of kissing or being in love disgusted him. He would never, ever tell her, but he thought that Mother’s love for Father made her weak. 

 

However, he was not expecting to feel his soulmate die. He was not expecting the emptiness, the loneliness that came with her(?) death. 

 

He does not expect the worry for the person on the other end, when the pain flickers and he’s not sure if they’re alive or dead. He does not expect the longing to make sure they’re okay.

 

He pushes it down, tells himself to train. 

 

_ A train could get me to Gotham,  _ his mind whispers. He berates himself, tells himself he’s being stupid. 

 

And when he finds himself stealing away in the night, he assures himself that it’s because he wants to meet his father. 

 

He’s a good liar. 

 

\-------

  
  


Steph is sixteen years old, and she’s back in Gotham, and she has her people with her. Bruce lets them stay in the manor, and she sits in Damian’s room with Cassie and Kara and Damian. Cassie and Kara seem to have difficulty with not touching her, and Steph can’t blame them. Damian sits across from her, his knees drawn to his chest. He keeps looking from Kara to Cassie to Steph and back again. Steph isn’t sure what to say.  “Hey, I’m two of you guys’s soulmate and I’m also the only soulmate of the other, imagine that!” doesn’t seem to cut it. Of course they all knew, but still. 

 

“H-how long have you been in Gotham?” Steph asks finally, directed at Damian. “Who’s your mom? Why….why are you so scarred?” Damian looks alarmed. 

 

“I--” he starts, then he stops. Steph can almost see him pulling up walls, drawing in on himself. 

 

“I  _ suppose  _ that since you have been Robin, you would know about the League of Assassins?” he says, his voice snooty. “Or did my father not trust you with that information, either?” He sounds snide, cruel. Steph’s not sure what this is, because only a second ago he’d looked oddly vulnerable. She casts a glance back at Cassie and Kara. They look stunned, confused. She turns back to Damian. 

 

“I know about the League,” she says, slowly. “Why?”

 

“I have trained with the League since I was born,” he boasts. 

 

“What the hell,” Kara whispers.

 

“Why?” Steph asks. 

 

“My grandfather is Ra’s al Ghul,” he says. “And my father is Batman.” Steph’s knowledge of the League is limited, but she remembers who Talia al Ghul is. If Damian’s been training since he was born, then all those scars must be a result of that training, and--she doesn’t let herself think it anymore. 

 

“Oh, Damian,” she breathes, and he recoils. 

 

“I’m fine,” he snaps. He looks so small. She wants to reach for him, but she doesn’t.

 

\------

 

Cassie is sixteen years old, and she’s laying in a big bed in Wayne Manor, of all places, and Kara’s curled up to her side, and her other side is bare. Steph had said that she’d be back “in a few”--and Cassie’s not sure if that means she went to the bathroom, or went on patrol. She’s not sure how long it’s been since she and Kara went to bed, but Kara’s sleeping, and Cassie’s not. 

 

She stares at the dark ceiling ahead. She considers moving, to search for Steph, but she doesn’t want to disturb Kara. The manor is nearly still, with one or two people clattering around. Cassie’s hearing isn’t refined enough to know who, but she assumes it’s Alfred, and hopes the other is Steph. 

 

When nobody shows up for a few minutes, Cassie closes her eyes to try and sleep. 

 

A door is pushed open, and a sliver of light reaches the back of Cassie’s eyelids. She opens her eyes and Steph’s in pajamas, getting in the bed. 

 

“Sorry,” she whispers. “I needed to talk to everyone.”

 

“It’s fine,” Cassie says. “You--you don’t have to sleep here, if you don’t want to.” She sees the white of Steph’s teeth in her smile. 

 

“I want to,” she says, and it sounds like a promise. She curls up next to Cassie, almost mirroring Kara. Cassie feels warm, happy. Steph’s hand finds hers, and their fingers tangle together. 

 

“Are you okay?” Cassie asks. 

 

“I think so,” Steph says. “Are  _ you _ okay? I mean, I have….another soulmate.”

 

“I know,” Cassie says, and she’s known for a while, and had time to think. Although she didn’t expect Steph’s other soulmate to be such a little snot. “And I haven’t--talked to Kara about it, but. I don’t mind.”  

 

“Really?” Steph asks, and she sounds vulnerable, and Cassie’s only known her for a day, but she doesn’t like it. She squeezes her hand. 

 

“Really,” she promises.

 

\-----

 

Kara is seventeen years old, and she still lives with the Danvers’, and Cassie lives with the Titans, and she’s not sure where Steph lives. Normally when she goes to find her, she’s at Wayne Manor. 

 

Steph is everything Kara’d hoped she’d be and more, and it’s not been very long at all but she loves her so much already. 

 

And although Damian’s done nothing to endear himself to her, she knows that someday, at least, they’ll be friends. 

 

(Kara’s good at making friends.)

 

Kara can’t help but shout from the heavens, because she’s found her soulmates and she’s in  _ love  _ and she remembers telling an itty-bitty Kal that she’d find her soulmate on Earth. 

 

“Well, I did!” she says, giddy. Clark casts a fond smile at her. 

 

“I’m glad,” he says, and they fly over Metropolis, Kara doing loops and twirls. “Cassie’s a good person, and Steph--I don’t really know her, but I’m confident that she’s wonderful.”

 

“She is,” Kara gushes. “The absolute best. Well, besides Cassie.” She does another happy loop. Clark laughs. 

 

\----

 

“ _ Steph  _ is your soulmate?” Drake asks again, still doggedly following Damian. Damian is eleven years old, and Drake is being  _ very annoying.  _

 

“Yes,” he hisses through gritted teeth. “As I have said many times before.”

 

“But...Steph?” Drake asks. “And you?”

 

“Yes,” Damian says, whirling on his heels to face him. “She’s  _ my  _ soulmate, and not yours, and you need to not do whatever it is that you’re doing right now.”

 

“I’m just asking,” Drake says, backing up. “And I don’t--want Steph to be my soulmate. I like Kon. But...she’s a little old for you. That’s all.” Damian crosses his arms and glares. 

 

“I’m  _ not  _ going to fall in love with her,” Damian says. 

 

“How do you know?” Drake asks, and Damian squints up at him. He doesn’t have to tell him anything. 

 

“I don’t want to,” he says. “Romance is disgusting.”

 

“I want to call that pre-pubescent delusions,” Drake says. “But are you aro?”

 

“Am I  _ what?”  _

 

“Aromantic. Like….you don’t experience romantic attraction.”

 

“That’s a thing?” Damian asks, completely stunned. 

 

“Yeah,” Drake says. “And there’s a whole spectrum. Ace, demi, aro…”

 

“Explain,” Damian demands, his mind racing. 

 

“Fine,” Drake says, then he smirks. “I told Steph about all this, too.”

 

\-----

 

Steph is seventeen years old, and she doesn’t mean to, but when she goes into Titans Tower, and just goes straight to Cassie’s room, she doesn’t knock. And she pushes open the door and freezes.

 

It’s not like she didn’t expect this, she thinks. It was bound to happen. 

 

Kara’s on Cassie’s lap, and their tongues are down each other’s throats, and Kara’s hands are under Cassie’s shirt, which is all fine, they can do that, Steph doesn’t really mind. 

 

But suddenly it all comes crashing down on her, that they’re--into sex stuff. And would they expect--Steph stumbles back and they stop abruptly. 

 

They turn to face her, and Kara’s hair is all ruffled, and Cassie’s face is flushed, and both have kiss-swollen lips. 

 

“Um,” Kara says, starting to laugh a little. “Want to, um, join us?”

 

“I dunno how that’d work, but we can figure something out,” Cassie says, smiling at her, and Steph wonders if they were wondering about her never kissing them. 

 

“I’m ace,” she blurts, and they both look surprised. 

 

“Y--you are?” Kara asks. Steph nods. “Oh.” 

 

“But not aro?” Cassie asks. 

 

“No,” Steph says. “I think I’m biromantic. I don’t know. I like girls.”

 

“That’s good,” Kara says. “This is fine. Um. We can...not do stuff around you.”

 

“I don’t think I mind kisses,” Steph says. “Like, if there’s no tongue involved.” 

 

“Okay,” Cassie says. “You set the boundaries.” Kara nods and Steph sighs in relief. 

 

“Thank you,” she says. “For understanding.”

 

“No problem,” Kara says, smiling happily, and she speeds over to Steph and kisses her cheek, right near her mouth, and Steph smiles.

 

\----

 

Cassie is seventeen years old, and she hasn’t seen Steph in a few weeks, and she’s worried. Kara’s off world, so she can’t call her, but she hasn’t seen her since Steph told them about her sexuality. Cassie doesn’t think so, but maybe--maybe she’s avoiding them.

 

She finds that she can’t wait any longer, so she flies to Gotham. 

 

She wears a black cape thing that she found laying around Titans Tower--she blames both Tim and Raven for that one--so that she won’t draw as much attention. She tries to stick close to the roofs, so she can look like a bat. 

 

She searches for half an hour before something stops her. A black blonde shape, whirling by. Cassie watches from behind, and there’s purple on the person’s costume. 

 

“Steph?” she says, and the girl whirls around. It’s Steph, but it’s--Batgirl. “You’re Batgirl?”

 

“It’s a new development,” Steph says, and she flips back to Cassie’s rooftop. “You like?” And Cassie looks her up and down. She likes it a lot more than she probably should. 

 

“You know how civilians call Bruce, Diana, and Clark the trinity?” Cassie asks. Steph nods slowly, seemingly confused by the non-sequitur. “Well,” she adds, “Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are the trinity. So if Super _ girl,  _ Bat _ girl,  _ and Wonder  _ Girl  _ are soulmates---”

 

Steph catches on and laughs. 

 

“What does that make us?”

 

“Golden trinity?” Cassie guesss, and Steph laughs harder. 

 

\------

 

Kara is eighteen years old, and she wakes up toasty warm. She lifts her head to see Cassie, curled up at her side, wearing only a t-shirt and underwear. Steph’s on Kara’s other side, half covering her, wearing a tank top and shorts. It’s winter, but they’ve said that Kara’s Kryptonian heat makes them warm, and she has no reason not to believe them. 

 

Neither of them are shivering, so, it must be true. She smiles and curls back down, getting comfy again. 

 

\-----

 

Damian is twelve years old, and he does not like this twisting in his stomach. He does not like the pang of the emotion he refuses to identify every time he sees Brown with Danvers and Sandsmark. He does not like this...jealousy. 

 

He knows Brown is his soulmate, but she is also the soulmate of those others. She has to split her time with them, and it’s not fair. 

 

Danvers and Sandsmark can have each other, why should Damian have to share Brown with them? 

 

He doesn’t know how to express this, so he just avoids all three of them altogether, focusing more on training and everything else, seething in silence.

 

\-----

 

Steph is seventeen, and she has a soulmate who ignores her and two who love her. She’s with the two that love her when it happens. 

 

She doubles over in pain, sudden tears streaming from her eyes. 

 

“Steph?” Kara asks, worried. Steph can’t speak, too focused on the stabbing sensation in her middle. Her hands go to her stomach, where she’s almost positive that she’s being run through. 

 

She’s not, and the pain doesn’t last long before it’s gone. 

 

Gone, and she feels vaguely empty, like she’s missing something, and she sobs into the table of the little cafe they’re at. 

 

“Steph!” Kara repeats, her hand on her back. 

 

“What happened?” Cassie asks urgently. “Are you okay?” Steph shakes her head, tries to get herself under control. She knows what happened, knows what it has to be. 

 

“Damian,” she says, and she can’t say anything else, but she pushes the words out anyway. “I think--I think he’s dead.”

 

\----

 

Cassie is only seventeen, and her heart breaks for the second time. Without missing a beat, she grabs Steph’s hand and pulls her up. 

 

“We’ll find them,” she says, she promises. Steph nods through the sobs, and Cassie remembers how it felt, and she doubles her speed. 

 

Kara runs ahead, leads them to an alley, twirls into Supergirl. 

 

“Come on,” she says, and she lifts Steph up. 

 

“I’ll meet you,” Cassie says, taking off her backpack. Superspeed is not an advantage she has, unfortunately. 

 

“Right,” Kara nods, and she’s off, taking Steph with her. Cassie changes as fast as she can, no mind for modesty, she just knows--she has to get there. Now. 

 

She tugs on her boot and lifts off, following the direction Kara had gone. She soars after her, her heart beating a wicked tattoo against her chest. 

 

\----

 

Kara’s eighteen years old, and she thinks that this might be worse than when Steph died. At least when Steph was gone, she kept coming back. At least Kara and Cassie had each other, had hope. But now…

 

Steph’s in bed, at Wayne Manor, staring at nothing. She hasn’t moved all day, and Kara’s afraid. She’s afraid for Steph.

 

The funeral was a week ago, and Bruce is going crazy, and Steph’s probably depressed. And Kara doesn’t know what to do. Cassie’s pacing somewhere behind her, and Kara’s perched uncertainly on the bed. 

 

She doesn’t know what to do, she doesn’t know what to do, she doesn’t--her thoughts are cut off by a tingling in her arm. She looks down, and there’s a purple bat. Another one draws itself on. Kara knows what that means, and she looks back at Cassie. She shrugs. 

 

Kara turns back to Steph, who’s still staring at the wall, but now she’s drawing, too. Over and over. It’s a way of coping, Kara knows, and she doesn’t mind the purple bats on her arm, if that’s how Steph’s going to deal with this. 

 

But she can’t help but crawl under the covers, to try and get closer to Steph. She takes the pen from her pocket, and she goes towards her hand. 

 

She’s no expert, but she manages to draw a big Robin “R” on the back of her--their--hands. It’s not like the memorial Cassie and Kara had for Steph, not at all, but it’s something.

 

\-----

 

Damian wakes up and everything is blurry, but when he can see straight, there’s also three faces, right there. Father, most prominently. Grayson, right behind him. And Brown, who’s crying (no, no, don’t) but she’s also smiling. 

 

He’s in the cave, and his father says something, but he’s fixated on Brown’s face. She looks happy, which is absurd, because when he was dead--for that must be what happened--she would have been free of him and able to be truly with Danvers and Sandsmark. 

 

After all, why would she need an aromantic asexual soulmate, when she could have two lesbian soulmates, just for her?

 

But she’s here, and smiling at him, and this is all absurd, and Father’s words about Brown helping him raise him from the dead reach his ears, then he’s reaching for her. 

 

She hugs him, wraps around him, and he curls into her. He inhales her scent, lemons and waffles, and this is the first time he’s been this close to her. 

 

“Why are you here?” he mumbles into the bat on her chest. She stiffens, then draws him closer. 

 

“You’re my soulmate, silly,” she whispers into his hair. “I’m sorry if I made you feel unloved.”

 

“You have Danvers and Sandsmark,” Damian says. “Why would you...need me?” She makes a choking noise, and he’s afraid. 

 

“Dami,” she says. “I don’t care what social norms say, you’re my soulmate. That won’t change because I have other ones.”

 

“But I have nothing to offer,” he says, and she laughs, just a little. 

 

“I’m asexual,” she says. “I don’t need anything but love.” 

 

He’s not sure if he can do that, but she seems certain he can. 

 

“Now go hug your dad,” she says. “And I’ll be right here.”

  
  


He believes her. 

 

\------

 

Stephanie Brown is eighteen years old, and she’s in a giant bed Bruce put in her room in the manor, and Cassie and Kara are there, sound asleep. They’re in front, Cassie in the middle, and Steph’s just on the edge of sleep and wake. 

 

Feet patter on the floor, and she turns as the door slides open soundlessly. Damian looks afraid, but less so then he did even a month ago. 

 

“Nightmares?” she asks, the barest of whispers. He nods, almost imperceptibly. She knows he won’t admit that to anyone else. She lifts up the blankets, and he comes over, climbs in next to her. 

 

They aren’t touching, but he breathes a sigh of relief. His breathing slows, and she knows he’s not asleep. 

 

Cassie shifts, nuzzling Steph’s arm. 

 

Steph smiles up at the ceiling. 

 

She remembers a time, when she was small and she’d burrow under blankets with a flashlight to look at what new marks her soulmate left her. 

 

She remembers when she thought she had only one. 

  
  


Preposterous.   
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed :) comments/kudos are always welcome!


End file.
